Discouraged Texas Democrats

The “key demographic” in pulling off an upset of Gov. Rick Perry, as identified by a pollster who gauged the race for Democrat Chris Bell?

Discouraged Texas Democrats.

Seems this dispirited group is “tossing wasted votes” to independents Carole Keeton Strayhorn and Kinky Friedman, according to a memo from Alan Secrest of the Democratic polling firm, Virginia-based Cooper & Secrest.

“There is only one viable path to beating the hugely vulnerable Rick Perry: Chris Bell,” he wrote.

Bell spokesman Jason Stanford said how much his candidate paid to glean this information will be revealed on his next campaign finance report.

The July 31-Aug. 6 survey of 1,010 likely Texas general election voters found Perry at 38 percent, Bell at 18 percent, Strayhorn at 16 percent, Friedman at 11 percent and Libertarian James Werner at 1 percent, with 16 percent undecided. The pollster said “among those who recognize Chris Bell,” his support rises to 28 percent, with 32 percent for Perry. Among those who have seen Bell’s TV ads, he says, Perry and Bell are tied at 29 percent each.

See more details at www.chrisbell.com.

Spokespeople for the Friedman and Strayhorn campaigns called the poll “a joke.”

Perry spokesman Robert Black did not address the poll directly, instead saying that his boss doesn’t govern by polls but “leads by principle.”